Wee Ninja and friends

Take a look at these cute stuffed animals at shop.shawnimals.com. They are called Wee Ninja, Son of Moustachio, Stumpy the Bear Cub Jr and Relaxed Kicky. Some of them available only in a limited edition.

Shadow light

A few years ago I fell in love with this lamp and now I started to dream about it again. I really want Tord Boontje’s Shadow light for Sonja’s room. The lamp is projecting shadowed images onto the walls and it’s like a magical carrousel of colour and light and so dreamlike. I don’t know, maybe it makes you totally dizzy after a while… I like a lot of Tord Boontje’s design, especially his lamps. Just the romantic names (I know, a bit silly, but…) makes me happy: Midsummer light, Come rain, come shine, Spring blossom…

Green Fortune

The company Green Fortune finds new ways to integrate greenery in the urban environment. They are mostly known for their plantwalls which is a smart and beautiful way of having lots of greenery in public spaces. I’ve seen this more and more here in Sweden lately, especially in shops and restaurants.

Perry, come on!

Clothes from the new fantastic collection of Perry, come on! It’s a new brand designed by Hanna Michelson and Hannes Cederquist. They have a store located in Hornstull, Stockholm, but their clothes can also be found in other stores in Stockholm and Göteborg. And they will soon have a web shop.

The Sartorialist

Stockholm is in the middle of Fashion Week and the man with the sharpest eye for elegant street style is in town. To see these lovely girls and more stylish Stockholmers, check out The Sartorialist.

Banksy look-a-like

This Monet-like water lily pond gave me this summer’s greatest art experience. I went to a playground by this pond (in a park right behind Götaplatsen in Göteborg) and heard some parents complaining about the mess in the park. I looked and I saw the shopping trolley in the pond, but I also saw the Banksy painting “Show me the Monet” which is a remaking of Monet’s water lilies series. I think it's a funny similarity. And Banksy is by the way a genius.

Pacifier tree

Today I went to Skansen with my sister and her three boys. Skansen is an outdoor museum and a zoological park and is a great place to spend a day. All the beautiful old houses at Skansen deserve a post of their own and I will return to that later. Anyway... The garlands above are not Hawaian-style flower decorations but made from pacifiers. Here, when children are old enough to loose their pacifiers, they are asked to hang them in this tree so they can be donated to the baby animals at Skansen. I participated in this ceremony last February when it was time for Filip, my sister's four year old, to part with his soother. We were so proud to see this sad but determined little man give up his first addiction.

Cattis' cottage

Yesterday I had dinner with my friend Cattis in her summer house in the archepelago just outside Stockholm. Cattis inherited this mid 19th century cottage when she was 21. It was her family’s summer house and she spent her holidays here when she was a child. After renovating it she can now come here all year round. Cattis is an interior decorator and has filled her house with sweet and fun details and come up with many smart solutions to make it a modern home without taking away its charm. It’s one of the most beautiful homes I know but above all it’s cosy, warm and restful and I just love being there.

Cattis’ cottage has been featured in IKEA Family magazine where you can look at more images. Photo courtesy Per Gunnarsson whose images are so much better than anything I would be able to present.

Play tray

I found this fia/ludo tray at the shop in the Röhsska museum (a nice design museum) in Göteborg. I don’t even know if I like it, it’s kind of silly. But on the other hand it’s cute and colourful and I can really see the use of it. Personally I could use a backgammon tray.

Exhibition in Andyland

This summer we show twenty of Andyland’s pictures in the design store Svenssons i Lammhult in Gothenburg. We were invited to use the whole top floor which is furnished and decorated like a home. Henrik Sundblad took these photos from the exhibition. We haven’t styled them and it’s fun to see how he has used different angles to show the works in the rooms.

New fabrics from IKEA

The new IKEA catalogue is out and they have some lovely new Paul Smith-style striped fabrics. Check out "new items" on the IKEA site.

Ann-Sofie Back

Some images from the autumn/winter-07 collection by this hyped London-based Swedish designer. Besides the high fashion brand Ann-Sofie Back also designs a more wearable line simply named Back.

Lasse Östman

Ceramics have always fascinated me. There is something so interesting about the different phases in creating this kind of artwork; the design, the shaping of the clay, the glazing and the burning. A good result requires artistic skill, good handicraft and knowledge about what chemicals to use for a specific glaze. Then there is the fire that will ultimately form the result in a way that is never totally predictable. My favourite Swedish ceramist, or potter as he prefers to call himself, is Lasse Östman. He has a workshop in Dalarna where he makes small miniature vases, nearly one meter wide bowls, pots and plates in a lot of shapes. The forms are mostly classical with no or sparse decoration. The glazing spans over hundreds of varieties; tenmoku, iron red, mother-of-pearl, copper red, crystal glazes and much more. Each piece is unique.

The Nordic Watercolour Museum

I'm back in Stockholm again! But I still have some pictures from Bohuslän to show. Here is the Nordic Watercolour Museum in Skärhamn on the island Tjörn. It’s a beautiful building right by the water designed by the Danish architects Niels Bruun and Henrik Corfitsen. The inner structure of the museum is in concrete and steel, the outer facades are upright red-painted wooden panelling. Right across the museum are five external guest studios. It’s a really nice museum with a fantastic restaurant.

Transit Studios

At Telefonplan just outside central Stockholm and next to Konstfack, the Univerity College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Ulrika and I share office space with some amazingly talented designers. I have posted about a couple of them before, and below are three more interesting young design companies.

JBA Design

Jantze Brogård Asshoff designs furniture and products for the home interior and work environment. Their ambition is to beautify and simplify our surroundings to improve the everyday life by creating sophisticated, useful products with a poetic soul and playful character.

Unsold Form

Unsold Form makes graphic design and illustration for interior decoration. The black flowers from the series SkuggFlora are a well known sight in Stockholm. They are formcut vinyls for the fridge, bathroom, or any space that could use some extra glow.

Oldsjö Hultgren Design

Jenny Oldsjö and Ragnar Hultgren offer tailor-made solutions and work with different materials and techniques. Their goal is to interpret the clients' visions and together take them one step further. They describe design as the connection between concept, function, material, and aesthetics.

Roundabout dog

Is this a Swedish phenomenon? Or do mystical handmade dogs suddenly turn up in roundabouts in other places too? Yesterday this cute wooden male dog (it is well made and detailed so, well, no doubt it's a boy) had turned up in the roundabout outside my house. He wears a collar with a tag saying: Hello! My name is Manne. Mimmi and I hope Manne will hang around for a while.